Act of mercy led to a thriving area

July 23, 2004

MAGDALEN STREET, ROAD AND CLOSE

WE HAVE the sinner turned cathedral builder to thank for this name, which in other places is pronounced “Maudlin” but in Norwich is “Mag-da-len.”

A police officer stands on duty outside the old Barclays Bank at the junction of Magdalen Street and Botolph Street in 1959.

It was the great Norman Bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga, who founded Norwich Cathedral — some say as a penance. In the first register of the cathedral it is chronicled that:

“Herbert the Bishop, sedulously persisting in deeds of mercy, found a certain house in honour of St Mary Magdalen on the land of his church outside the city of Norwich for the relief of lepers.”

This was in the early 12th century and St Mary Magdalen Hospital was the first of a dozen leper hospitals set up in England. Lepers were called lazars, after Lazarus, the man full of sores who lay at the rich man’s gates, and Magdalen Chapel became known as the Lazar House.

During the Middle Ages the dread and fear of leprosy was very real and in Norwich this was one of five places set up outside the city walls to give shelter to lepers. The roads that sprang up around this historic building — recently at the centre of a storm of protest when it was closed as a library — were named after this pioneering hospital.

Hundreds of years ago, on All Saints’ Day, the mayor, the sheriffs, aldermen and common council, preceded by the City Watch in their armour, rode along this historic route. And it was there, by Magdalen Chapel, that huge crowds turned up for the rough and tumble Rush Fair, where they bought poultry and rushes from the Broads.

There was bear-baiting, cock-fighting, wrestling and archery. And if anyone overstepped the mark, they knew what they could expect a few hundred yards beyond — where Magdalen Road joins Sprowston Road, was Gallows Hill, or Maudly Gallows.

It was in 1549 that the rag-tag army of Robert Kett broke into the city via the Magdalen and Pockthorpe Gates.

Over the centuries more and more people moved into Magdalen Street and the surrounding area that became a maze of courts and yards. It was home to thousands of people who were proud of their roots . . . “down Magdalen Street”.

After the Second World War this historical part of Norwich changed completely. The demolition men moved in as Stump Cross was destroyed and the flyover and Anglia Square appeared. It was sliced in half.

Magdalen Street and the whole area is still waiting to be restored to its former glory. It’s been a long wait, but at last there are signs this is finally happening.

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